“Trouble!” Kaelzar’s panicked voice cuts through the haze.
Then the pain hits, like I’m being torn apart from the inside. Like invisible seams are ripping open. I gasp, unsteady, trembling. It’s as if a layer of my skin has been peeled off, leaving me exposed, raw, cold and burning all at once.
Kaelzar’s arms catch me, steadying me as my vision swims. Tears spill down my face and I try to wipe at them, dazed.
Then I spot Zyrel. He’s doubled over too, shaking, caught in the same invisible grip. Whatever this is, it’s affecting us both.
“Trouble,” Kaelzar says firmly, his hands gripping my shoulders. “Look at me. Are you hurt?” His voice tells me he’s asked that question more than once already.
I start to shake my head to reassure him, but then I see something move behind Kaelzar. A crimson mass, pulsing with a slow, sickrhythm, crawls across the ground on my side of the arena. On the other side, a molten, silver shape rolls away from Zyrel, moving in the same direction.
Kaelzar notices the panic in my eyes and turns. He sees it too.
“What is that?” he asks.
I knew the moment I saw it. The connection was instant, primal.
“My Blood magic,” I whisper. “It’s… the physical form of it.”
It’s been ripped out of me. Torn free. Watching it crawl along the sand toward the thrones leaves me hollow, like someone has stolen a vital organ.
A furious growl rolls from Kaelzar, no doubt at the thought of all the nearly dead animals he spent hours tracking down so I could ease their suffering and gather enough Blood magic for the Challenge—now wasted.
The red mass moves fast. Within seconds, it climbs the throne, stretching and twisting, taking on form. The arena falls utterly silent as the shape becomes unmistakable—a woman.
The Witch Goddess, Calista.
Even from a hundred and fifty feet away, her outline is clear: horns sweeping upward like blades, her body draped in liquid scarlet, as though her very skin bleeds. She sits in perfect stillness, hands resting calmly in her lap. Even blurred by distance, the sight of her freezes the air in my lungs.
On the throne beside hers sits another figure, twice her size.
Thul’Barak. His horns spiral thick and long.
A physical pull tugs at me, an instinct to run, to seize my magic and drag it back into myself by sheer force. But before I can move, the Sibyls’ voices boom from the high rails above, ringing in perfect unison.
“Greetings,” they say. “Today we gather for the final challenge, one that will decide which of the two remaining Champions shall raise their god to the rank of Sovereign of Calcatra. The rules are simple: one half of your magic has been taken from you. Whichever of you reaches and reclaims it first will prove your worth to your magic.”
My smaller size could finally be an advantage, though it could just as easily be a disadvantage. My legs are shorter, which means my strideis too, and I wouldn’t be able to run as quickly.
But the Sibyls aren’t done.
“Your Godbeasts,” they continue, “may act as they choose—to hinder your opponent or to defend you from one another. Or from other obstacles.”
Other obstacles.
The words hang heavy in the air. My pulse quickens as I scan the arena, searching for any sign of danger. There’s nothing. No movement, no trap I can see.
“When do we—” I start, but the question never finishes.
A piercing, bone-deep screech cuts through the arena as the glass wall between us trembles violently. A second later, it explodes, shattering into a thousand glittering shards that pour down on us like lethal rain.
There’s nowhere to run. No cover from the storm of glass hurtling toward us. Instinct takes over. I reach for my Blood magic, instinctively hoping to have enough to use it on both myself and Kaelzar— and feel nothing.
The emptiness where that power used to live hits like a blow. It’s so sudden, so absolute, that for a heartbeat, I can’t move.
Kaelzar doesn’t hesitate. He lunges forward, wrapping himself around me. One arm sweeps above our heads, and shadows surge to life, forming a solid wall of dark brick between us and the onslaught.
The sound that follows is chaos. Shattering glass, the deep, pained roar of a dragon, the crack of shards slamming into stone. It’s deafening, a storm of violence.
